


Hell and Back

by RavenSinead



Series: There but for the Grace of God... [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Emotional Manipulation, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-18 15:44:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2353772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenSinead/pseuds/RavenSinead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Collectors swarmed. Humans fell and were taken. The Alliance failed. Ashley Williams has never handled defeat well, but Horizon spells more than defeat. It's a reunion she never wanted to have, a reunion with a ghost made flesh once more. A reincarnation of hell itself...an attraction unexplored and reviled for its very existence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hell and Back

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All characters and settings belong to BioWare. I own nothing.

  **Horizon**     

     The mirror cracked. Ashley stared at it, the fractured image of her face an apt metaphor for the splintered thoughts screaming through her head. She flexed her right hand, staring at the armor plating, not even scratched from its impact with the small mirror. 

     Ashley had stayed in her armor after...after what had happened, too shaken to remove it. Her entire body felt tense, ready for a battle, even though the Collectors had already come and gone...even after she had failed the colonists on Horizon. 

      _There was nothing I could do,_ the soldier attempted to rationalize.  _Nothing. We were outmatched, outgunned, and even **Shepard** couldn't pull a miracle out of her ass this time._  

     The armored fist thudded into the mirror again; the tiny pieces of reflective glass clattered into the sink and rattled against the porcelain. Shepard. The very name ignited Ashley's soul like a molten brand pressed against skin, searing it, making it itch where she couldn't reach. It had been hours, hours since the few minutes that had turned Ashley's world on its end. Hours since Horizon had been a terror soaked nightmare as the Collectors came and raped the colony. Hours since the order had come down; an Alliance transport ship would be there tomorrow and the remaining marines would muster out for a new destination. 

     Ashley sighed and stared at the minute flecks of glass in the sink. She pulled off her gloves and began the arduous task of removing her armor. The attacks were over, the Collectors gone, and Shepard somewhere in orbit in the new Normandy. The armor fell to the floor in its various pieces, Ashley's hands trembling as they pulled at the stuck zipper of her under-armor. 

     As much as she wanted to, she could not erase the image of her former commander from her mind. She could not shake the sensations that had washed over her when she heard that voice in her ears for the first time in two years...two long years of fruitless self-convincing, regrets, guilt...longing. 

      _Why couldn't I have said something with **meaning!**  _The operations chief berated herself.  ** _Why_** _did I simply just stand there and react!?_

    She did not have to question herself for very long. The answer was simple. Raegan Shepard was the most  _infuriating_ woman in the galaxy. Ungentle, callous, unkind, and downright brutal. She was the dark side of all four seasons in the span of an hour, bewildering, confusing, demanding in the mere force of presence she exuded. And Ashley had--once--found it intoxicating, mysterious, worth enduring.

     _Until I realized just how hot the fires of hell could burn_ , Ashley attempted to force thoughts of her former commanding officer away. For the thousandth time. The millionth time. The time that was never the charm, no matter how many multiples of three it might include. 

     The memory of their interaction played through Ashley's mind again and she kicked her armor across the concrete floor of her spartan quarters, wrecking the careful order that she prided herself on keeping, no matter the circumstances. 

      _Always be ready for inspection,_ her father had told her the day before she shipped out to basic,  _even when you're comfortable in your career. You're a Williams. All we've got is our pride. No matter your CO, no matter the postings you get, you **keep** that pride, kiddo._  

     Pride. Loyalty. Bearing. All things that the Williams family cherished, even those who hadn't joined up. It had been her pride that kept her from falling for the manic light in Shepard's eyes...before the woman had been reborn. Before Raegan had died and been rebuilt by the worst example humanity had to offer. 

      _Damn it to hell_. Ashley leaned against the wall, tapping the back of her head against it as she remembered the heat of Raegan Shepard's gaze on her again. Somehow, Cerberus had rebuilt her eyes. Somehow, they were still that impossible shade of brilliant green, light and menacing, like the sky on Earth warning of an imminent tornado. 

* * *

      _Ashley ducks behind a crate, listening to the screeching of her shield generator's warning, watching the Collector's ship deflect anti-aircraft fire and take off from Horizon. She hears the sound of running and readies her weapon until Delan's voice rings out._

_"No, don't let them get away!" he cries._

_Ashley's shoulders slump and her grip on the rifle falters. Another failure for the Alliance. Another colony raided and brutalized. Another survival that shouldn't have been. She begins to move, to console Delan, when the sound of another voice freezes her in place._

_"What do you want, a goddamn miracle?" the voice is low and rough, tinged with an unforgiving steel that can only belong to **one** woman. A soldier back from the dead, the most frightening of strangers...a damned soul. "There's nothing I can do. They're gone."_

_Ashley's heart begins pounding in her chest, louder and harsher than the shield generator that still screams at her in warning._

_"Half the colony's in there!" Delan shouts. "They took Egan and Sam and...and Lilith! Do something!"_

_Each name flies through the air like a bullet, like a knife in the gut pushed deeper and deeper and deeper. Ashley tries to hold on, tries to keep her composure and maintain her bearing, but hearing their names, hearing the desperation in Delan's voice, serves only to twist the knife._

_**He's just a simple man, a quiet mechanic. Horizon was his world and now it's...now it's gone.**_

_"Don't blame me for it ending this way and get your tears away from my fucking boots." Ashley leans back against the crate, shuddering as the familiar voice answers the mechanic's plea with callous disregard. It is Raegan Shepard...the woman who gave her life for the galaxy. The woman who should be dead. "I did what I could."_

_**No, you didn't!** Ashley's thoughts accuse.  **You died! You abandoned the galaxy! And for the life of me, I can't say "good riddance" with any honesty.**_

_"More than most, Shepard." Ashley recognizes Garrus' voice and the words he speaks make her cringe._

_Always the accolades for Raegan Shepard, always the encouragements from all races and species. Yes, Raegan had done admirable things, brave things, courageous things...but the woman was **not** infallible! She made mistakes! Often. On purpose. _

_Ashley peeks out from behind the crate and sees the Cerberus symbol stamped on Shepard's armor. Another mistake made...or was it?_

_**I would hope, if faced with resurrection by such a reprehensible group, that I would have the courage to end my existence!** Ashley thinks, feeling her pulse pound with anger. _

_"Shepard?" Delan asks. "I know that name...I remember you. You're some type of big Alliance hero."_

_Unable to stand hearing anything further, Ashley holsters her weapon and strides out from behind the crate._

_"Commander Shepard," her voice is laced with justifiable contempt. "Captain of the Normandy. The first human Spectre. The Savior of the Citadel. You're in the presence of a god, Delan." she glances at the mechanic and then back to Shepard, refusing to meet that stormy green gaze. "Back from the dead."_

_Delan glares at her, crossing his arms with spite. "All the good people we lost, and a Williams gets left behind. Figures."_

_Raegan's laughter cuts through the air and Ashley's shoulders bunch into shrieking knots. She stares at her mocking former commander, remembering the screaming, the outright fury as she demanded to know **why** her life had been spared on Virmire. Raegan had not given her an answer, just a look. A look that conveyed more than Ashley cared to contemplate. It had been horrific, hungry, and haunted all at the same time. It had been enough to make Ashley believe that Shepard wanted to be more than her commander. The chief's pride had faltered at the thought, but not broken. _

_"Screw this." Delan threw his hands up in the air. "I'm done with you Alliance types."_

_He walks away, leaving Ashley's throat swollen and raw as she at last meets Raegan's eyes. Garrus nods to her in greeting, but the dark haired woman in the strange white skin-tight suit says nothing. Raegan holds the silence, controlling it. In rebellion, in anger, Ashley breaks it._

_"I thought you were dead, commander," she cringes as the rank Shepard no longer holds crosses her lips. "We all did."_

_Shepard smiles and Ashley looks for the creasing of the scars that are no longer there...lost memories of the hardship that Raegan had endured and led them through._

_"It's been too long, Ash." the nickname sounds wrong to the operations chief's ears and she bristles._

_**How dare you be so calm! How dare you speak to me as though we've only been away from each other for a month! **  
_

_"How have you been?" Raegan asks, her eyes searching Ashley's own, that infuriating light in them that Ashley still admires and finds herself drawn to._

_"That's it!?" Ashley demands, her voice cold and hollow sounding to her ears. She remembers her bearing, her pride, all that she has left, and evens her tone, attempting to sound as nonchalant as her former CO. "You show up after two years and act like nothing's happened? I would've followed you anywhere, commander. I thought you were gone. I..." Ashley stops, looking at the woman before her, calm in the face of her accusations, unhurt by the recriminations Ashley attempts to hurl. "...you were more than our commander." Ashley whispers, knowing that a soldier can take a beating, the accusatory screams. It is the whisper that breaks a warrior...not that Raegan could ever be broken. "Why didn't you try to contact me?" she asks, hoping the bladed question will pierce Raegan's heart, as her very existence is draining Ashley's blood. "Why didn't you let me know you were alive?"_

_**Did I mean nothing? Was the light in your eyes a lie? Do you know how much I** **hate** **you right now?**  
_

_"I was out for two years." Raegan explains, carefully modulated, too low to be callous, too quick to be remorseful. "You've moved on with your career and your life. Why reopen old wounds?" the question is a blade, a blade that purposefully cuts at those old wounds, both Ashley and Raegan know it._

_**Is that what I was, Shepard? A wound? Then where is the scar!? Where on your new, flawless body is the mark that reads "Ashley Williams touched this heart"? It's nowhere. You're a fucking monster, Raegan. I should never have believed you. **_

_"I moved on." Ashley states, emphatic, daring to meet Raegan's gaze...falling forward again into that viridian gleam, softening against her will, and letting anger tinge her words. "But here you are, pulling me back in to your sick, sadistic games. Is this Cerberus thing part of that? Or are all the reports true?"_

_"Reports?" Garrus asks. "You mean you already knew?"_

_Ashley draws herself up. "Alliance said Cerberus could be behind our missing colonies. We got a tip that this one could be the next to get hit. I went to Anderson but he wouldn't talk. But there were rumors you weren't dead, Raegan." she smiles in satisfaction as Shepard's eyes widen at the use of her first name. "Worse; that you were working for the enemy."_

_"Our colonies are disappearing." Shepard says. "The Alliance turned its back on them. While I always enjoy that, I like a good fight all the more."_

_**That's not true!** Ashley's pride shrieks.  **I'm here! The Alliance was here! Are we nothing? Am I nothing? **_

_"Cerberus is the only group willing to give me that fight." Shepard rationalizes. "The only one willing to help. Are you saying evil can't manage to do something right once in a while, chief? You know me too well to believe that."_

_**How fucking dare you!?**_

_"Bullshit." Ashley claims, standing against Shepard, for it seems she is still the only one who ever will. "I know what Cerberus is like. They talk about putting humans first, but at what cost?"_

_**You hated them too, Raegan. Or don't you remember? What did they do to you? Put some chip in your head? Slice off the part of your brain that hated them?**_

_Ashley shakes her head in disgust. "I wanted to believe that you were alive...I just never expected anything like **this.** You've turned your back on everything we stood for!"_

_"Ash, you know me." Shepard speaks, low and almost imploring, until it becomes harsh and bladed. "You know **we** have never stood for the same things."_

_**God, I hate you!** Ashley thinks, remembering the awe she felt on Eden Prime as Shepard fought through the geth and shoved Kaidan Alenko out of the way of the Prothean beacon. The awe that had turned to adoration, then affection, and perhaps even... **no. It wasn't that. It can't be that.** _

_"You saw it yourself." Shepard's voice heats, carrying the fire that once stirred Ashley's blood and made her heart race. "The Collectors are targeting human colonies. And they're working with the Reapers."_

_"I'd like to believe you, Shepard." Ashley replies, wishing that it weren'_ _t true. "But I don't trust Cerberus. I don't trust you. What are you going to do if they're behind this? What if they're the ones working with the Collectors?"_

_"Typical Alliance attitude." the dark haired woman scoffs, her accent an irritating whine. "You're so focused on Cerberus that you're blind to the real threat."_

**_You bitch!_ ** _Ashley forms an immediate dislike for this woman, and the pinch of Shepard's brow seems to indicate that she feels the same. The reaction throws Ashley off guard._

_"You don't have to trust me, Ash." Shepard says. "And if they are the ones behind this, after we take out the Collectors, a bunch of xenophobes aren't going to be that difficult," she leers at the cat-suited woman. "Ignorance, hate, and dogma never deflected a bullet. But, right now, Ash, we're helping, and you're letting how you feel about their history get in the way of the facts."_

_Ashely tenses, recognizing Raegan's infuriating penchant for saying the truth in the most obvious of ways. The woman can justify her actions like no other. After all, there is no explanation for the "Butcher of Torfan" retaining a command after the atrocities._

_"Or maybe you feel like you owe Cerberus after they saved you." Ashley accuses, unwilling to fall for Raegan's charisma. "Maybe it's you."_

_"Ash..."_

_"It doesn't matter." the chief bites. " **I** still know where my loyalties lie. I'm an Alliance soldier. It's in my blood."_

_**The blood that you heat, Raegan. It's still mine and by God I will not let you win me over. You came close, but I did not fall then and I will not fall now!** _

_"I'm reporting back to the Citadel." Ashley forces herself to continue, even though her blood roars in her ears at the frenzied light dancing in Shepard's eyes. "I'll let them decide if they believe your story."_

_Ashley summons her strength and turns away, feeling Raegan's eyes on her like twin suns, hotter than hell and twice as damning._

_"Come back, Ash." Raegan says, no hint of weakness in the steel that is her voice. "It'll be just like old times."_

_"No." Ashley looks back at the commander, almost hoping it is for the last time. "It won't. I'm no fan of aliens, but Cerberus has a history of being extremist...which suits you. But I'll never work for a group like that. Good-bye, Shepard. And, for what it's worth, good luck."_

_She continues to walk away, back to her barracks. In the distance, she hears Shepard's voice._

_"Joker, send the shuttle to pick us up. I've had enough of this damn colony."_

_**It's had enough of you, Shepard.** Ashley's thoughts hiss.  **The whole damn galaxy has had enough of you. Maybe you should have stayed dead.**_

* * *

     Ashley stared out the tiny window, watching smoke rise from the buildings that had caught fire during the assault. Fire that had yet to die. 

      _Stop,_ she ordered herself.  _I said my piece. I made my peace. Shepard can go and get herself killed again for all I care._  

     Ashley turned as the door of her quarters flew open. Her jaw went slack as the door crashed into the opposite wall. The chief clenched her fists. Trust Shepard to make an entrance: an unwanted, unsolicited, bombastic entrance. 

     Ashley waited for the silence to change, to deepen or be broken with harsh words from her former commanding officer. Her knuckles turned white with the strain of clenching her fists. Shepard simply stood there, leaning casually against the doorway, dressed in nothing but a simple black t-shirt and the cargo pants she had always been too fond of. 

     "Take this kiss upon the brow," Raegan spoke, clear and authoritative, "and, in parting from you now, thus much let me avow--you are not wrong, who deem that my days have been a dream; yet if hope has flown away, in a night, or in a day, in a vision, or in none, is it therefore the less  _gone? All_ that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."

     "You know I never liked Poe." Ashley frowned at Shepard's quote. 

     "I know." Raegan smirked. "I spent time memorizing that, just for you."

     Ashley reined in her temper as she had so many times aboard the first incarnation of the Normandy. She held her tongue in the presence of her commanding officer...before realizing that the woman before her no longer held any rank or sway. That the tenuous authority Raegan once possessed was ended, ended when she came back from the dead and put on a Cerberus uniform. 

     "You're a fucking bitch, Raegan." Ashley snapped. "I heard you call for transport. What the hell are you doing back here?"

     "I hate leaving things unfinished." Shepard shrugged her shoulders and closed the door behind her. 

     "If that's the case, why'd you join up with Cerberus?" Ashley stepped back as Shepard drew closer. "Why not come back to the Alliance and finish things properly?"

     "Death changes a person." Shepard grinned her razor smile that could slice through enemies and friends...not that she possessed the latter. 

     "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?" Ashley asked, beginning to shake as fury overwhelmed her. "Trying to get a rise out of me, just like you did on Ilos."

    "Come now, Ash. You know the definition of insanity as well as I do." Shepard leaned against the wall. "Why would I try what didn't work on Ilos?"

     "Whatever you try sure as hell won't work now." Ashley muttered. "You wanted my pride and my honor, Shepard. Everything you wanted that night was against regulations."

     "We all knew we were going to die." Raegan replied, but no vulnerability characterized the words...as they might if spoken by a true human being. "You know me, Ash." she kept  _saying_ that. "I don't let go of what I want."

     Anger crackled across Ashley's nerves, burning deep into her. " _That's_ why you're here isn't it?" she hissed. "To get what you fucking  _want_. Get the fuck out, Shepard. It wasn't an option then, and it sure as hell isn't now."

     "You see any rank on these shoulders?" Shepard asked, pushing and twisting the knife named Ilos in Ashley's gut, two years after it had been removed. 

     "That's what stopped me then, Raegan. The fact that you're a despicable representation of humanity is what's stopping me now." Ashely stood unmoved, wishing for a flash of pain or anger in Raegan's eyes. Anything. Any reaction at all. 

     But it would not happen. This was what they were to each other. Neither could break the other down...Ashley's defenses withstood Raegan's assault, every time, and the former commander had formed some bizarre attraction to that, to the one person who possessed the ability to defy her, question her, challenge her. Their relationship had been nothing like Shepard and Kaidan's. Raegan hadn't even remembered his name...but she remembered Ashley. She and Raegan battered at each other's walls, questioning everything, wrecking each other's composure, sometimes just for the thrill of the fight.

     "What  _is_ stopping you now?" Shepard asked, stepping closer, close enough that Ashley could smell the vanilla and cinnamon soap that Raegan had been so fond of. 

      _Aboard the Normandy SR-1. When we were...what we were. When we might have been more...if her choice in that hasn't changed...has what she wanted from me changed?_

     "The fact that you're working for an organization that I despise." Ashley retorted, hoping the vitriol in her voice would make Shepard and that intoxicating smell take a step backward. 

     A step forward instead. 

     "Don't be that way, Ashley." Raegan said, her voice dropping into a lower register, heating with intensity. "So you hate the uniform. So do I. Way too damn scratchy."

     "I hate the goddamn uniform and the fact that  _you_ are wearing it." Ashley snapped. "I hate that you're still Raegan Shepard."

     "I'm still what you knew then, just not  _properly_." Raegan smirked, hinting at the night-that-wasn't before Ilos. "So don't be all high and mighty and thinking you're better than me. We both  _know_ you are, but I can still put you in your place...chief."

     "You're  _not_ my commander anymore." Ashley seethed, hating herself as she gave ground and backed up a step, cursing internally as she felt the cool of the wall blocking any further movement. "You're  _nothing_ to me, Shepard."

     "Hmmm." the once-commander mused as she stood there, shadowing Ashley's slight movements with her own. "A rose by any other name would surely smell as sweet." she quoted Shakespeare. "But if a rose had a different body..."

     "Fuck off, Raegan." Ashley pushed away from the wall and walked past Shepard, fully intending to leave the room and walk outside, where the scent of vanilla and cinnamon was not so cloying, and the sun would dim the glow in those damnable green eyes. 

     "No." Shepard almost growled and her hand latched around Ashley's arm, arresting the marine's movement. 

     Her grip was firm, surety itself, and before Ashley could think to counter, Shepard had taken her arm and twisted it behind Ashley's back, pulling painfully at the shoulder. The former commander's other arm laced around Ashley's neck as she molded their bodies together, hard muscle and scarred skin, battle-damaged beauty. 

     "Remember this?" Shepard asked, her voice a low and dangerous whisper, stirring the small, dark hairs on Ashley's neck and making them rise. "Remember what it felt like, just to feel?"

     Ashley's training kicked and she planted her feet and flexed her knees, ramming the back of her head against Shepard's nose. The arms around her faltered and Ashley tore free, glaring at the woman who had put her through hell. 

     "I don't want to remember." she growled. "I don't want to think of it, because the hands that touched me that night are the same damn hands! You haven't changed! The fact that you're still alive is disgusting! It's against  _everything_ I fought for! It's against God!"

     "I wanted one life, one death, and hopefully one love in between that." Shepard retained her composure and regained her feet. "But I only got the first two. Maybe I came back for the third."

      _Love?_ Ashely stared at Raegan and her hands began to tremble with something that...something that couldn't be anger, that couldn't be fear, but still existed as both and neither. 

     "Find it somewhere else." she kept her resolve. "There's nothing for you here."

     "Goddamn, Ash." Shepard muttered, her fingers running lightly over the bridge of her nose where Ashley had struck her. "This is cold, even for you. I pretty much just told you that I came back from the dead for you..."

     "You were built out of spare parts to be a mouthpiece for Cerberus. Because Cerberus doesn't  _have_ heroes. And now, neither does humanity. Get out, Raegan. You shouldn't have come back."

     Ashely tried not to see the wrath welling in Shepard's green eyes. She attempted to believe that the woman in front of her had lost something of the woman that Ashley had... _loved? Did I? Did she? I didn't want to. But I did. What **is** this? _

     "I didn't really have a choice in the matter, Ash." Shepard grinned, stepping closer again, the scent of her washing over Ashley once more. "I'll go." Raegan whispered, her breath ghosting against Ashley's cheek. "I will just...please, Ash. Remind me...remind me that the past was real, that you were real. One kiss good-bye. For all the things we could have had and didn't." Raegan leaned forward, pressing her forehead to Ashley's, tangling her fingers in the chief's black hair, free from its confines. "Please. Just a kiss."

     Ashley's hands trembled at Shepard's nearness. The woman commanded the same presence she alway shad, the ability to shift the mood of the room with a word, a glance, a gesture. Raegan had a charisma, a fire and magnetism that drew people towards her in such a way that they lost their sense of right and self-preservation. 

     They did not know. But Ashley knew, if she got too close, she would be incinerated. She refused to let that happen. But, to get free...a deal with the devil must be made. 

     "One kiss." she relented, thinking it best to cave this one time, to give into this singular demand and let whatever might have been, and whatever still was, vanish into the dark places of the galaxy along with the ghost of Raegan Shepard. 

     "At last." Shepard breathed. 

     Ashley's own breath shuddered out as Shepard's hand caressed her cheek. It felt the same as it always had, strong and callused, scented lightly with metal and salt. Shepard's thumb caressed her jaw and Ashley tilted her face upwards, surprised as Shepard's lips pressed against hers with no preamble. 

     Ashley had not known what to expect...perhaps a kiss farewell, as Shepard had claimed. Instead, Raegan kissed her with passion. Her lips were liquid fire, the hottest alcohol burning down Ashley's throat and spreading through her veins. Ashley's lips pressed back, deepening the kiss, fighting fire with flames of her own, refusing to back down. 

     Shepard's lips parted and Ashley took the ground given, running her tongue alongside Shepard's own, battling and dancing with lips and teeth. She had forgotten this, that while flames would burn, sparks entranced, and she felt those sparks now, firing through her nervous system, intoxicating her, drowning her...

     "You bitch!" Ashley shoved Raegan away, breathing heavily while Shepard seemed unmoved. "Don't you dare try to seduce me, Shepard! Don't you fucking  _dare!_ "

     "Try?" Shepard smirked. "Look at you. Your face is flushed; you're trembling. Don't have another night of regret, Ashley."

     "That won't work this time, Skipper." Ashley stated, though she could not deny Raegan's words were true. She felt alive, energized, not how a soldier who had been dealt a grievous defeat should feel. "You can't manipulate me into..."

     "Who's manipulating?" Shepard moved forward again, resting her hands on Ashley's hips, pulling their bodies together until no space, no air, nothing but the hum-wire of electricity arcing between them existed. Raegan leaned forward, pressing her lips to the pulse point of Ashley's neck, feeling it hop skip race against her lips. "I feel it too." Raegan whispered as Ashley's head fell back, against her will...or was it? "I always have. Can't you just let go for a goddamn minute?"

     A muted cry escaped Ashley's lips as Shepard's teeth bit down on the sensitive skin between shoulder and neck, sending shockwaves through her, tingling in her fingers, down her spine, across her breasts. She sucked in air as Shepard's hand moved from her hip, up, along her side in a gentle massage. Every part of Ashley began to ache as she felt the surety of Raegan's hands. 

     Her mind flashed back to Ilos, the heat and pulsating current that had been between them then. The muted electricity flowed through her now as Shepard's nails raked down her back. Before there had been rank and policy dividing them, but now, in this moment, all that stood before her, that assaulted her neck with kisses as those divine murderer's hands caressed her, was just a woman. Raegan Shepard. 

      _Rae...gan...Shep...ard,_ Ashley's thoughts groaned on ragged breaths. Not an officer, not her commander, nothing to her but someone warm and perhaps passionate for the first time. Someone in whom she could bury the defeat of Horizon. Someone whose hands would at last be her equal, not her superior. 

     Ashley grabbed Shepard's collar and wrenched the woman upwards, forcing their lips together as she held Shepard against her. She felt the lips that had been fire turn into iron as they resisted against Ashley's relentless assault. Shepard had always been taller, but her body was wiry where Ashley's was muscular. Using that to her advantage, the chief pushed forward with arms and hips, backing Shepard towards the small cot in the room and forcing her down onto the mattress. 

     Shepard leered as Ashley stood above her, straddling Raegan's legs with her own. The razor grin flashed once more as Shepard snaked out one of her legs and pulled at the back of Ashley's knee, sending the chieff off balance. In an artful move, Shepard rose, threw her arm around Ashley's waist and used the momentum of her fall to reverse their positions. Like a wolf going in for the kill, Shepard placed her teeth against Ashley's throat, nipping along the lines of taut muscle. 

     Ashley struggled beneath Raegan, thrusting a muscled leg between Raegan's thighs in an attempt to unseat her. Shepard groaned and forced her hips downward, pinning Ashley's leg against the bed. Elegant, terrible hands ripped at the chief's zipper, forcing the recalcitrant metal down, baring an expanse of creamy caramel flesh that begged to be tasted. 

     Ashley's body throbbed as Shepard's lips moved down her throat and across her chest, between her breasts. Then teeth, shocking and sharp, scraming across the defined muscles of her abdomen. The muscles twitched as the heat between their bodies flared and Ashley wanted to scream in frustration, in anger, in pure and absolute bliss. Shepard assaulted her relentlessly, her hands tearing at the skin-tight under-armor, smiling as their efforts revealed two perfect breasts capped with taut, mocha nipples. 

     Ashley reached up, determined that Raegan would be as bare as she herself was, as vulnerable and viciously desperate. Shepard's hand iced around Ashley's wrists, and the chief shuddered as she remembered what she had seen these hands do. They could rip apart a krogan battlemaster with nothing but a K-Bar. They could string a violin and wring music from it that would turn the hardest heart to mush. Those hands held Ashley's own captive and the mouth that could call down the fury of hell and drive spirits to the maddest of suicides closed around her left nipple. 

     Ashley cried out as Shepard's teeth savaged and tongue soothed the sensitive flesh in alternating currents that served to make her muscles leap and fluctuate. Her body pleaded to surrender as her breathing grew heavy and moisture slicked her thighs. She threw her head back and closed her eyes, reveling in the sensation of Shepard's hands as they kneaded and scraped her legs and sides, Shepard's lips as they worshipped and ravaged her breasts. 

     "I dreamed of this." Shepard growled as she pulsed her hips against Ashley's own, drawing an incoherent noise from the chief. "Every night since Ilos, I wanted to make you mine. While I burned in hell, I wanted to make you mine."

     The words burned against Ashley's ears, but not a pleasant flame. They scoured her like acid, the possessive note in Raegan's voice driving her all but insane. The woman above her had slaughtered indiscriminately, not caring who was caught in the crossfire. She had waged a war across the galaxy, hunting Saren, but not out of altruism, not for the greater good. 

     It had been a new high for Raegan Shepard, the Butcher of Torfan. She had gloried in the explosions, the destruction, the blood on her hands. In the last moments, Ashley realized she had lost her pride, her integrity, her sense of  _right_. She did not want to be possessed by a woman like Shepard. 

      _I will **not** be made anything by her!_  Ashley's thoughts screamed. 

     Faster than thought, she broke herself free of Shepard's grasp and punched the woman across the face. Shepard's eyes glazed and Ashley rose, grasping Raegan's shoulders and reversing their positions once more. Shepard's long, dextrous fingers reached up to touch the reddening mark on her cheek, scarcely noticing that Ashley ripped at her clothing, tearing it off of her piece by piece with no gentleness. 

     Ashley caught her breath as she stared down at the woman she had admired, feared, fought with and alongside. The pale flesh beneath her sent another throb of desire between her legs, aching to be sated, soothed, but not possessed, not chained. Ashley's fingernails raked across Shepard's torso, where a scar had once streched from beneath her right breast to her navel. The red lines stood out stark against the creamy skin as Ashely continued her assault, marking with teeth and nails every place on Shepard's body where a scar should have been. 

     Harsh, stilted noises of pained pleasure tore from Raegan's throat as Ashley bit deep at the juncture of torso and thigh, where a bullet had struck Shepard in the fight against Saren. 

     "You're a fucking monster." Ashley hissed as she ran her fingers through the slick, swollen flesh of Raegan's sex. "You're unnatural. You're an obscenity, a blasphemy, and nothing that I ever,  _ever_ wanted in my life."

     "You hate me so much, then stop." Raegan hissed as Ashley's other hand tormened a pebbled, pink nipple. 

     "No." Ashley growled, thrusting three fingers deep within Shepard, glorying in the hoarse, pained noise that shredded through the room. "You talk about being in hell; I'll put you through it again." Ashley continued to thrust into Shepard in sharp, fast, primal movements. She attempted not to focus on the heady scent of Raegan's arousal, the velvet strength fluttering against her fingers. "I'll take you to hell and bring you back, Shepard. Hell and back; where I've been and where you  _won't_  ever take me again."

     Ashley grinned in satisfaction as Shepard's body became wire tight, as her hands clutched the scratchy, uncomfortable, military issue blanket. The chief continued her assault, letting sweat bead on her forehead and sting as it slipped into her eyes. Shepard's walls tightened around her thrusting fingers and she moved her other hand, circling Raegan's clit with two fingers in gentle, subtle sweeps completely antonymic to the vicious penetration of her fingers. 

     Shepard's body went taut and began shaking as Ashley forced herself to continue, pushing through the ache in her shoulder and jaw, which she had clenched tight in concentration. Her reward came moments later when Raegan gasped out a solid stream of epithets as her walls contracted and released around Ashley's fingers. A grim smile crossed Ashley's face as she curved her fingers upwards and pulled out with a jerk, her nails raking the most sensitive of inner flesh. Her reward was a throaty growl of pain, barely muted by the knife-slice of residual pleasure. 

     Somewhat unsteady, Ashley pushed off of the bed, picking up Shepard's clothes from where she had thrown them. She cleaned her hand on Raegan's shirt and threw the clothing at her former commander's naked, shuddering body. 

     "Get out." Ashley ordered. "Now, Raegan. This is one time you don't get to win."

     Shepard's eyes opened, the green icy and predatory. "Nicely played, chief." she tucked a strand of sweaty hair behind her ear. "And a beautiful execution if I do say so myself. Give me a hand up and I"ll get dressed and out of your hair, forever, if you want it that way."

     Shepard extended her hand and Ashley frowned as she noticed its steadiness. In her mind, she knew she could not trust this incarnation of her once admired, once longed-for commanding officer. But Raegan had flown her true colors all along...it had simply taken this moment for Ashley to see them for what they were. And Raegan had been the victor. Ashley's body ached for release, craved it even, but not at this woman's hands. 

     She had made the right decision on Ilos. No matter Raegan's words, brutal or beatific, she could never take them at face value. The great Commander Shepard could fool the rest of the galaxy, but not Ashley Williams. 

     It was not a show of trust, but an act of defiance as Ashley reached out and took Shepard's hand, lifting her into a sitting position. 

     "That was some hit, chief." Shepard's fingers moved to the rapidly darkening bruise on her cheek. "Distracted me long enough that you got my boots off. Of course," Shepard smirked, "you have great hands."

     Ashley scoffed. "I don't know what I am to you, Raegan." she said. "But I argued with myself for a long while. At one point, I thought I was in love with you...and I thought you were with me. But you've never loved anything in your entire life."

     Shepard bent over the side of the bed and lifted her boots onto it, her movements slow and methodical. She looked into Ashley's dark eyes, her own filled with...no emotion whatsoever. 

     "You're not wrong, Williams." she whispered. "You're not wrong."

     The words, striking in their absolute, brual sincerity, jarred Ashley from her thoughts and their vehemence. She was unaware of any shift until she felt strong, warm hands grasping her hips, pulling her forward and peeling down her under-armor simultaneously. A protest was at the tip of her tongue, her fingers curling into another fist when she felt a gentle kiss pressed against her stomach. 

     Ashley's body froze as Shepard slid off of the bed and knelt before the chief, kissing through the trimmed thatch of hair between her legs, moving lower, reaching out with her tongue and tasting Ashley's arousal, sliding through swollen, electrified skin. 

     Ashley moaned as her hips pushed forward of their own initiative, as her clenched hand, instead of striking once more, unclenched and threaded through Shepard's hair, drawing the woman's face closer. Her mind was a chaotic swirl of resolve and adamant resistance, but her body spoke with deeper needs. Ashley's legs trembled as Shepard pressed the tip of her tongue against that most sensitive bundle of nerves. Her knees quivered and Raegan stood, catching Ashley as she stumbled. The commander's strong arms wrapped around the chief's body and guided her back to the bed. Raegan covered Ashley's body with her own and began yet another assault on the chief's senses. 

     Where before she had been frenzied, dominating, Raegan now moved with painstaking tenderness, her musician's, butcher's fingers slipping across Ashley's sex, tormenting her with feather-light touches. Ashley moaned as Raegan joined their mouths in a sensual, evocative kiss, running her tongue across the insie of Ashley's lips, gently pulling the chief's lower lip between her teeth as she withdrew from the kiss.

     With singleminded devotion, Raegan pressed gentle kisses to both of Ashley's breasts before moving lower. Ashley cried out as Raegan's fingers played counterpoint to Ashley's vicious assault of earlier. She whimpered as Shepard slipped inside, beginning a slow, easy rhythm as she pressed lips and tongue to Ashley's clit, whispering, tantalizing, making love. 

     The chief clutched at the covers, squeezing them until her knuckles turned white. Her body moved to a rhythm older than the military drumbeat, older than the pounding of her heart inside her chest. Her heart raced like a hummingbird's wingbeats, ferocious against the elements surrounding her, the solidarity of Shepard's hands without and within, the gossamer slide of lips and tongue in her most intimate places. 

     Sighing, Ashley floated away on the wave of Raegan's tender assault, tears filling her eyes even as she could feel the pressure building in her body. She wept for the dream that had died on Ilos, with a refusal. She had craved  _this_ touch,  _this_ fulfillment, and  _these very hands_ on her body. 

     Somehow, the dream was still sweeter than the reality, sweeter than Shepard's mouth on her body, than her hands playing Ashley in the same manner as her violin. Because the woman who touched her now, with painstaking care, was too good to be true. Ashley knew that this moment had been planned, every word memorized, every motion calculated to result in this very end. Raegan did not play to lose...and Ashley did not win. This moment, as sweet as it could have been, was tainted, because Raegan and Ashley both knew a kind conqueror won hearts...but the iron in the fist she clenched was no less cold, no less sharp.

     Ashley sobbed as she came in slow, languorous waves of agonized pleasure. Raegan rested her head on Ashley's stomach, feeling every muscle contract and expand, listening to every breath of air in Ashley's lungs. The chief continued to weep and Shepard withdrew her hand and lifted her head, her hair tangled around her face. 

     "That's better." she whispered, pressing a kiss of false tenderness to Ashley's brow. 

     Slow, Shepard dressed, saying nothing. She laced her boots and tucked her pants around her blousing straps. At last, she looked back to Ashley, who lay naked and vulnerable and mourning. 

     "That's 'hell and back', chief." Shepard whispered. "I win."

     Ashley stared at Raegan, feeling sorrow and hatred clash as the Butcher of Torfan quirked her lips in that infamous razor smile and winked. 

     "What the hell are you, Shepard?" Ashley asked. "A sociopath? A good woman, broken? I can't...can't tell."

     Shepard stood. "Two roads diverged into a yellow wood." she walked to the door and grasped the handle, looking back on Ashley one last time, her eyes the color of a menacing tornado sky. "I took the one less traveled by."

 

 


End file.
